A Picture Perfect Shower

This post is part of a sponsored campaign with Shutterfly and Looksi Square.  All opinions are honestly my own.

Guess. what.  This summer, I’m getting something really really exciting!  A sister!!!  As most of you know, I’m an only child, and have always been quite content with that fact.  But, there’s something fun now that I’m grown up about the idea of having another girl in the family!  My husband is one of three boys, and his youngest brother is getting married in July.  I can’t wait for the wedding {especially since LC gets to be the ring bearer}, and I wanted to do something special in the meantime to welcome my future sister-in-law Joanna to the family!  With some help from my fabulous friends at Shutterfly, I was able to put together a special and meaningful shower to celebrate her upcoming marriage, as well as help her decorate their home!  Take a look!

It all started with this invitation.  You see, Joanna and Steve have one huge thing in common…they’re both professional chefs!  They met a few years ago when they were both working at Per Sé restaurant in New York, which happens to have three Michelin stars.  Later, both went to Charleston to learn Low Country cuisine, and now the pair is employed at Family Meal, a Maryland restaurant owned by season six Top Chef runner-up Brian Voltaggio.  Steve is the Sous chef, while Joanna is {my favorite} a pastry chef!  They both love cooking so much that they are even planning to cater their own wedding.  So, as soon as I saw this Stock the Kitchen invitation filled with kitchen utensils, I knew it was the perfect inspiration piece for a chef’s shower.

Using the invitation as my starting point, I built a party around the idea of cooking, kitchen utensils, and all things foodie.  I started gathering all the photos I could of Joanna and Steve and the family, as well as photos of food they have cooked and restaurants where they’ve worked.  Then, I headed back to Shutterfly to start creating some decor and other goodies!  First of all, I knew we’d need a guest book for the shower…not to mention that they’ll need one for the wedding.  I chose the Wedding Collection Guest Book with Storytelling Style.

I love the variety of unique page options there are as you flip through the book, like one that allows guests to predict where the couple will be in five years…wouldn’t it be so fun to see the guesses of your friends and family, then look back on them five years later to see how they compared to what really happened in your life?  Then there are fun pages like this one, where guests get to fill in the blanks!

Some pages have the traditional lines, others have squares to sign in, and {my mother-in-law’s favorite part} the parents of the groom and the parents of the bride each get their own special page to write down advice and wishes.

The whole book is absolutely gorgeous from cover to cover, and the “lay flat” option is so helpful when guests are signing.  There’s plenty of spaces for signatures and notes, so it’ll work for both the shower and the wedding itself.  Looking back at our own wedding guest book from 12 years ago, I really wish we’d had something like this that allowed our friends and family to write notes rather than just their names!

Speaking of writing, one of the activities I planned for the shower was for guests to have an opportunity to write a piece of advice for Joanna…their own “recipe for happiness”!   Instead of just using plain index cards or slips of paper, I ordered some 4×5″ From the Kitchen Stationery Cards that had a cute little mixer and rolling pin on them.

I thought it would be fun to have guests write the advice, then hang their cards with mini-clothespins as part of the shower decor.

I hung up a piece of baker’s twine, as well as some wooden utensils, and put the invitation in the center.  Then, the guests could hang their recipes for happiness on either side!  After the shower, Joanna can put the cards in a special recipe box to look back on.

Of course, no shower is complete without food, so I decided it would be fun to order some specialty plates with the couple’s photo and name.  After being used at the party, Steve and Joanna can keep and use them in their home for everyday meals.  I thought the French Bistro plate style was the perfect choice…after all, their kitchen at home is definitely as good as {or better than} pretty much any restaurant I’ve ever been to!  We have a photo plate for Little Crafter that we ordered months ago, so I know how well these will hold up to daily use and how easy they are to clean in the dishwasher.

And as for the drinks, I ordered photo coasters that would also do double duty at the shower and in the couple’s home.  Instead of just using pictures of the bride and groom together, I opted for photos of restaurants where they have worked and action shots of them in the kitchens there.

I expected them to be nice, but the quality surpassed my expectations.  They’re gorgeous, glossy, and the no slip cork backing makes them very practical at the same time.

In keeping with the theme of the shower, I decided that it would be fun to have recipe-related favors.  So, I packaged up some old fashioned sugar cookies along with a recipe for making them!

To add an extra personal touch, I ordered a set of stickers that had my favorite photo of the couple, as well as their names.  I thought that was the perfect way to seal the little cookie packages.

I think my favorite piece of decor, though, has to be the Monogram Memories table runner.  I had fun filling it in with photos and I liked the colors and look of it on screen, but I wasn’t prepared for how gorgeous it is in person.  The photos are crisp, the colors are vibrant, and everyone who saw it agrees that it’s a real piece of art!  It’s printed on poly blend fabric, and you have to see and touch it yourself to fully appreciate just how beautiful it really is.  I can’t wait to see how it looks on Steve and Joanna’s table.

Every newlywed couple needs things to decorate their walls, so I thought it would be fun to order a few pieces of Mounted Wall Art that would be fun for guests to view at the shower as well as becoming meaningful home decor.  The first one, which I put on the main table, is just my favorite photo of them, which I took last Thanksgiving.  The second one was more fun to create; a collage of food they’ve cooked and places they’ve worked, along with their initials. The restaurants pictured are the restaurant where they work now, the restaurant where they met, and the restaurant where Steve worked before going to NY and meeting Joanna.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that One Artsy Mama can’t throw a party without incorporating a craft project into it somehow.  In keeping with the chef and kitchen theme, I purchased some assorted wooden utensils for guests to have fun decorating with multi-surface paints, sponge brushes, and Stock the Kitchen address labels that I turned into fun stickers that match the invitation design.

I simply typed, “Cooking up a Happy Life Together” and their wedding date in place of an address when I created the labels, and voilá!  A little paint, a sticker, a coat of Mod Podge, and you have a fun DIY memento to take home of a special day and couple.

I love a good party, and I’m super excited for a new sister, so I had an awesome time putting this shower together!  I loved being able to put so many personal touches in with the help of the various Shutterfly products, and I think it’s going to be extra special that Steve and Joanna will get to keep so many of them as decor for their home.

Do you have any weddings, showers, or parties coming up this summer?  If so, be sure to take a look at the many options Shutterfly has to offer that will make the big day even more amazing.